Do you pay too much in taxes?
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In 2009 the average American paid about one-third of his
or her income to the federal government. Polls show that
most Americans believe their taxes are too high; there-
fore, many cheat. According to the Internal Revenue
Service, about 17 percent of American taxpayers in 2008
failed to comply with the tax laws. Many say that they
pay taxes only because they are forced to do so.
Yet most Americans pay, and do so voluntarily. Of the170 million Americans who owed federal taxes in 2008,
155 million filed returns. And while the tax code includes
stern punishments for cheaters, criminal prosecutions are
rare. In 2008 fewer than 2,500 Americans were convicted
of tax crimes, a number that has steadily declined over
the past decade.
In the mid-1700s, by contrast, American colonists
paid no more than one-twentieth of their income in
taxes, far less than their relatives in England. Yet taxa-
tion provoked the colonists more than any other issue.
John Adams, a Massachusetts lawyer whose opposition
to taxes catapulted him to fame, blamed the American
Revolution on England’s “enormous taxes, burdensome
taxes, oppressive, ruinous, intolerable taxes.”